(4) So order prison régimes that they shall serve the commonwealth, and should serve the prisoner; serve the commonwealth by enforcing penal codes written primarily to prevent crime, but which such as the murderous recidivist make it necessary to make repressive for the protection of society; and serve the prisoner through affording him every sane chance to forge ahead and face life squarely.
In the process, heaping reprisal should be religiously refused as less defensible than the reverse. Petty penalties that issue against perfectly natural while harmless expressions, are essentially baneful.
To begin with, we have to unset anti-social jaws. We may be able to do that big thing if we go about it like manly men, realizing that everything in life is relative; and that a fellow may have tricked himself into crime, yet be far from a by-choice criminal. Positively, we shall not do so with a “billy” and billingsgate. Neither can we coddle and pad a man to reformation. That will ensue upon nothing less than his changed habit of thought and action; and that will usually initiate, if at all, out of acquired knowledge and skill, from which to build or rebuild self-respect.
(5) Man correctional institutions throughout with men whose characters are unassailable, who example and suggest only that which is above reproach, who are naturally fitted to discourage the offense without discouraging the offender, and who instinctively dive deeply for compassion; but, who cannot be “faked” readily by criminal cunning, nor brought to a compromise with it.
Between such men and flippant “good-mixers” who set sail for untroubled waters and the lump sum; also between such men and “soulless politicians who gamble with dice loaded with human hearts,” drive wedges that triflers and stricksters cannot loosen.
(6) It will repay the States, handsomely, to establish criminological schools basically equipped for practical instruction, backed by elementary courses in anthropology and mental therapeutics. The chiefs of staffs of such schools should be men well advanced in years, and of proven worth which comprehends the practice and theory of a work great and grave as any to which man lends hand and brain. They should be “well advanced in years,” because one must have dealt first hand in their midst for the better part of a life time with true criminals ere he shall have dug to their ulterior designs and visioned their more refined crooks and curves.
Choice of chiefs of staffs should bear but incidental relation to diplomas—medical or other. While ability to prescribe for a prisoner physically, or to probe him psychologically, is a valuable asset, it does not, by any manner of means, postulate the stature of an all-purpose criminologist.
For example: a graduated general practicioner and psychic expert holds two blocks of the reform pyramid; yet only two, neither of which is the key-block. That does not reside in ability to tell off the bones of the human frame, nor to trace to subconscious impulsion; but in capacity to fit all the blocks of a delicately-poised structure and make them function in harmony, close to the maximum of efficiency, for a common purpose. Thereof, weight of influence must be carefully weighed, confounding of magnitudes avoided, and contact of extremes religiously discouraged.
Beyond all of that, the right man in place must be a consummate organizer who is able to trace to motive, draw derailed men unto him, minimize friction whatsoever, and plan and promote sound training and government; yet stand, as did the Christ, as adamant to him who would exploit evil intent out of an evil heart.
He who can fill that bulking order must be bigger, broader and deeper than the physical and mental technicist—be he never so clever.